All That Will Remain by Bethany Jarmul
You and I collect the straw, gather it in piles, the sun baking our backs, necks. How old are you? you ask me. 22. Is that too young? Not too young, you say as we mix the soil and water into brownie batter. When you finally kiss me, I ask if it’s a dream. No, you say, and I’ll kiss you again. We mix the straw into the mud, laughing and tossing handfuls of the lumpy mixture like snowballs. I introduce you to my parents at Olive Garden, of all places. I’ve never seen you so happy or so muddy, my mom says while swirling spaghetti.
We pour the mixture into molds shaped like thick gold bars. I cry anxious tears on the day that you propose, terrified of building something that could last forever. You wrap your arms around my trunk, kiss away tears. It’s okay, you say. I’ve got you. We bake the bricks in the sunshine, five days until they solidify, firm and ready. You ask again; this time my nails are painted. One by one, we remove the bricks from the molds, rudimentary rectangles.
On our wedding day, you are happiness in human form, leaking from the eyes. Brick by brick by brick, row upon row, until a wall forms, a baked, brown wall, beautifully imperfect. When anxiety chases after me or you lose your way, we hide behind the wall together, hands like interlocking stones. When the rain comes, we sit here, holding each other, getting wet. Walls two and three grow slowly, our bodies gaining muscle from the daily lifting, from making love on the rocks. Then the storms come, thick and thunderous, shaking us to our core—my womb frozen over, your job lost in the swamp. Tossed about, clothes pasted to us with rain, we build.
Our love will stay the same, you say. I say, nothing stays the same—only grows or withers. You nod, laying the final bricks, raising the roof above our heads. Your new job falls from the star-studded sky, my womb thaws and blossoms.
Anxiety again visits while I’m holding our newborn son in my arms. We’ll be gone one day, I say, our love lost. Yes, you say, we’ll be washed away at sea or buried beneath with our ancestors. Within our walls, you take our son into your arms. Yes, you say, after we’re gone, what our love has built is all that will remain.
“I gave up on this piece because it collected a lot of rejections, and I wasn’t sure what it is exactly. Is it a prose poem, a flash fiction, or a flash nonfiction (because the heart of the story is true)? I didn’t know what to do with it, so I “retired” it.”
Bethany Jarmul is a writer, editor, and poet. Her work has appeared in numerous literary magazines and been nominated for Best of the Net and Best Spiritual Literature. She earned first place in Women On Writing's Q2 2022 essay contest. Bethany enjoys chai lattes, nature walks, and memoirs. She lives near Pittsburgh with her family. Connect with her at bethanyjarmul.com or on Twitter: @BethanyJarmul.